The following was originally published January 19, 2008 at http://mshunt.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/why-i-teach-some-personal-information/
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my teaching lately — I mean a LOT of thought. I think about my hopes for my students and how I think I can guide them in that direction, not just why I came back to teaching.
With the New Year always come reflections. 2007 was a difficult year for me: after losing my job and my home, I moved across the country and returned to teaching. I accepted a very challenging job where I earn nearly $20,000 a year less than I made in 2006. I have all KINDS of reasons to feel sad and stressed, yet I don’t feel that way at all. Do you know why? Because I’m doing the right thing, and I LOVE the kids I work with every day. I care more about my students than I’ve cared about anything for a long time, and I want to do the very best job of teaching them as I possibly can.
We all watch the news; the world is becoming an increasingly complex place. The problems we face now are so very different from the ones our parents or grandparents faced, and they are even more different from the ones our children and grandchildren will face. They will have so many problems to solve! The world is counting on my students to solve the problems of drastic environmental and climate changes, possible economic catastrophes, pandemic illnesses, collapsing foreign relations, and volatile political crises. Heck, I don’t know how I would ever face these problems; how on earth can these young men and women sitting in my classroom??
It is my job to prepare my students to rise to such challenges, not to solve them myself, though. Of course I don’t have the answers, but someday someone will find them — my students will. Those who will lead our world through the quagmire of the 21st century sit in my classroom looking up at me every day with the expectation that I will teach them what they need to know. I doubt if any one of them has the slightest idea how difficult their future is likely to be, but my job is to prepare them for that future.
My students are our future. They are natural born leaders, many of them, and they will be the ones who become community, state, national and world leaders. I fully expect every single one of them to be greatly successful, because I know they can. They will not be paper-pushers, gas-pumpers, kow-towing menial laborers “working for the man.” My students will be CEOs, doctors, nurses, lawyers, businessmen, teachers, social workers, researchers, politicians, humanitarians and philanthropists — every single one of them. They will reach for the stars and grasp them. My students will set the gold standards by which all others are measured. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.
How can I know this? Because I challenge them to their utmost, and I accept nothing but their very best. I stopper my ears when they groan over homework because I know this hard work will prepare them for far more difficult challenges that they will face in the future. I ask them to think critically about all they do, to ask the very difficult questions, to revise their good writing to make it even better. I challenge them to their utmost, and they rise to the occasion every time. It is my job to see that they will learn to solve every problem they ever encounter, no matter how monumental, and I am confident they will do so.
I know my students will solve all the world’s problems, and this is why I love them so very much. They are the future.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my teaching lately — I mean a LOT of thought. I think about my hopes for my students and how I think I can guide them in that direction, not just why I came back to teaching.
With the New Year always come reflections. 2007 was a difficult year for me: after losing my job and my home, I moved across the country and returned to teaching. I accepted a very challenging job where I earn nearly $20,000 a year less than I made in 2006. I have all KINDS of reasons to feel sad and stressed, yet I don’t feel that way at all. Do you know why? Because I’m doing the right thing, and I LOVE the kids I work with every day. I care more about my students than I’ve cared about anything for a long time, and I want to do the very best job of teaching them as I possibly can.
We all watch the news; the world is becoming an increasingly complex place. The problems we face now are so very different from the ones our parents or grandparents faced, and they are even more different from the ones our children and grandchildren will face. They will have so many problems to solve! The world is counting on my students to solve the problems of drastic environmental and climate changes, possible economic catastrophes, pandemic illnesses, collapsing foreign relations, and volatile political crises. Heck, I don’t know how I would ever face these problems; how on earth can these young men and women sitting in my classroom??
It is my job to prepare my students to rise to such challenges, not to solve them myself, though. Of course I don’t have the answers, but someday someone will find them — my students will. Those who will lead our world through the quagmire of the 21st century sit in my classroom looking up at me every day with the expectation that I will teach them what they need to know. I doubt if any one of them has the slightest idea how difficult their future is likely to be, but my job is to prepare them for that future.
My students are our future. They are natural born leaders, many of them, and they will be the ones who become community, state, national and world leaders. I fully expect every single one of them to be greatly successful, because I know they can. They will not be paper-pushers, gas-pumpers, kow-towing menial laborers “working for the man.” My students will be CEOs, doctors, nurses, lawyers, businessmen, teachers, social workers, researchers, politicians, humanitarians and philanthropists — every single one of them. They will reach for the stars and grasp them. My students will set the gold standards by which all others are measured. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.
How can I know this? Because I challenge them to their utmost, and I accept nothing but their very best. I stopper my ears when they groan over homework because I know this hard work will prepare them for far more difficult challenges that they will face in the future. I ask them to think critically about all they do, to ask the very difficult questions, to revise their good writing to make it even better. I challenge them to their utmost, and they rise to the occasion every time. It is my job to see that they will learn to solve every problem they ever encounter, no matter how monumental, and I am confident they will do so.
I know my students will solve all the world’s problems, and this is why I love them so very much. They are the future.